p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
I know it sounds a bit odd but thinking about your childhood, how does it look like? Black and white? Polaroid? Kodachrome maybe?
What colour are your memories?
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oftheherd
Veteran
When I was a kid in the 40s and 50s, it was mostly b/w. Color was too expensive to do routinely. It was reserved for special ocassions. Kodachrome I think was a little expensive too, but I don't really recall. I know there was a lot of Agfa in color. and I still have some faded (I think) Anscochrome my Father took. He preferred slide to color negative. I don't know if he preferred the look or the ability to have slide shows. I still like to show slides.
Gareth Rees
Established
Interesting question.
Like you, bright with good colour.
Like you, bright with good colour.
Sparrow
Veteran
I think I read somewhere that our memories are "saved" in monochrome, then the brain assigns the colour only when we recall them ... but I can't remember where, which is clearly a fault with the system
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p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
How about the memories that are not recorded on film but only in you mind?
rudolf
Pictures Taker
Some time ago I talked to some psychology student about our dreams: do we dream in colour, or black&white only? What is the rule?
We started to make some research, and discovered that it depends on various factors:
first is the culture in terms of technology; the movies and television in particular (here is the link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3353504/Black-and-white-TV-generation-have-monochrome-dreams.html)
Second factor is culture in terms of societies and people we live with (see: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/DreamChina.pdf)
Anyway, the conclusion at the end was that it depends on how sensitive we are to the visual side of life.
I also created some web poll on my website (maybe not very serious poll, buy anyway...).
Total votes: 328; The poll's question: "What are your dreams?"
Answers:
61.3% Definitely colorful!
8.5% Black and white!
18.3% I dream both in color and b&w
4.9% I have no dreams
7.0% Dunno, don't care, leave me alone
🙂
We started to make some research, and discovered that it depends on various factors:
first is the culture in terms of technology; the movies and television in particular (here is the link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3353504/Black-and-white-TV-generation-have-monochrome-dreams.html)
Second factor is culture in terms of societies and people we live with (see: http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/DreamChina.pdf)
Anyway, the conclusion at the end was that it depends on how sensitive we are to the visual side of life.
I also created some web poll on my website (maybe not very serious poll, buy anyway...).
Total votes: 328; The poll's question: "What are your dreams?"
Answers:
61.3% Definitely colorful!
8.5% Black and white!
18.3% I dream both in color and b&w
4.9% I have no dreams
7.0% Dunno, don't care, leave me alone
🙂
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Great question!
Black and white. Not just my own childhood in the 1950s, but a continuity that goes back before I was born: my mother at 18 or 19 in the mid-to-late 40s, posing with the motorcycle my father sold to buy her engagement ring (which my wife now wears). And I shot a lot of B+W in the 60s, 70s and 80s too. Now that you raise the subject, the colour pictures are less 'real' in my memory than the B+Ws.
This is a topic that will repay a lot more thinking, so once again, thanks.
Cheers,
R.
Black and white. Not just my own childhood in the 1950s, but a continuity that goes back before I was born: my mother at 18 or 19 in the mid-to-late 40s, posing with the motorcycle my father sold to buy her engagement ring (which my wife now wears). And I shot a lot of B+W in the 60s, 70s and 80s too. Now that you raise the subject, the colour pictures are less 'real' in my memory than the B+Ws.
This is a topic that will repay a lot more thinking, so once again, thanks.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
The 'Digital ROC' (Restoration of Color) works astonishingly wel with faded transparencies, including Ascochromes. About three quarters of the way down http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps shooting the past 1.html there's a restored Anscochrome with the caption, The doctor, the photographer and the Kodak secretary -- Left to right, Lucille Schultz (doctor), Frances Schultz (photographer) and Nancy Burrett (Kodak secretary) -- somewhat before they took up the careers in question. This is about 1949-50.
It is not a brilliant picture (by the late W.A. Schultz on Anscochrome, heavily restored with Digital ICE and Adobe Photoshop) but it does recall the nature of childhood (and slide films) more than 50 years ago.Even if you don't know who the little girls are, there's a certain fascination in seeing a colour slide of that vintage.
Even so, Frances says her childhood was in black and white too.
Cheers,
R.
Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
I'm pretty sure the colors were then as they are now. The lighting is different, though, but that's just the latitude change.
zauhar
Veteran
I believe the OP is asking if your MEMORIES are in B&W or color, not what film your dad used. Some of the respondents keyed into that, some did not.
My childhood memories, sadly, are in bitter black and white or muted pastels.
Randy
My childhood memories, sadly, are in bitter black and white or muted pastels.
Randy
35mmdelux
Veni, vidi, vici
My Mom was the photographer in my family, shooting in 126 color. This was mostly in the 60's. In early 70's I took to SLR and Kodachrome.
For Randy, My memories are in color!
For Randy, My memories are in color!
zauhar
Veteran
Well, bully for you! ;-)
My wife likewise claims to remember her childhood in vivid color.
Randy
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Randy,
Of course I remember the blue skies and vivid yellow sandstone of my childhood in Malta, or the deep blue of the Bay of Tripoli, but equally, when I think about the moments I remember, they are as if they were part of a continuity (as I said) of black and white. After I started using more colour, my memories are less clear. I don't think that's just age -- after all, I was shooting Kodachrome in my 'teens in the 1960s -- but for me there's a sort of unconscious association between 'real' and 'black and white'.
That is how I read the OP's question, and, I think, how others did too.
Cheers,
R.
Hatch
Established
Since i'm a visual thinker, it's all in pure beautiful colour.
And it goes back a long, long way.
But I do like B&W photography.
And it goes back a long, long way.
But I do like B&W photography.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Another very good point. I'm mostly a verbal thinker. Until I took up photography at 16, I had very little visual memory.
Cheers,
R.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
My original question was reffering to memories as Randy mentioned but I leave the discusion open to any answers. Anyway I believe that the way we form our memories is not irrelevant to the way we have them stored. Some of my very early childhood memories are in black and white and that is probably because I based those memories in old black and white pictures.
zauhar
Veteran
From a course I took long ago, I do remember that more "primitive" cognition is in black and white, so maybe age has a lot to do with it. I do remember being strongly affected by color as I got a bit older - sometimes seeing a particular deep shade could give me a chill (this when I was a young teen).
Maybe as Roger suggests your visual environment plays a role. Growing up in Washington (state) the light was dim for much of the year, so maybe that leads me to have less vibrant visual memories.
Randy
Hatch
Established
Well one theory has it that visual thinkers
have not developed into verbal thinkers.
We are stuck in the more primitive stages 😱
Therefore memories that are not accessible to verbal thinkers still are for visual thinkers.
But it does have it's drawbacks.
My memorie for words as in names is awful.
I can't remember names of people I used to work with daily
But I'll recognize a face I've seen once, in a crowd, years later
like everything else in life, it has it's pros and cons.
ErnestoJL
Well-known
Recent and important memories are recorded in full colour.
Less important memories and older information looks like old Agfachrome CT18 (violet and white instead of B&W).
Memories from my teens are either in color when really important, and B&W when not.
Early childhood memories are mostly B&W.
I think my mind evolved like photography: mid fifties, only B&W, from sixties and on mixed color and B&W. Colour dyes may be affected with time as in my mind.
Cheers
Ernesto
Less important memories and older information looks like old Agfachrome CT18 (violet and white instead of B&W).
Memories from my teens are either in color when really important, and B&W when not.
Early childhood memories are mostly B&W.
I think my mind evolved like photography: mid fifties, only B&W, from sixties and on mixed color and B&W. Colour dyes may be affected with time as in my mind.
Cheers
Ernesto
zauhar
Veteran
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